He shushed me, waving my mouth shut while he crossed the kitchen and moved me aside to reach for a can, so of course i slammed my cup down and when i heard it crack, that little china chip dinting the sideboard, i said loudly over it, "it doesn't fucking MATTER" mostly to keep the echo from resounding and seeing his pitying eyes when he passed by once again. And there's a fury which is only about the present tense because sometimes you don't want to SEE the exact playout - watch him peel his dirty socks off stuck with grit and grime so i can feel the heat and moisture of his warm yellow feet from three feet away. I touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue and say, in my head, John, if i don't know what i want, it doesn't mean i don't want it.

He watches football, twenty minutes, a big grin on his face, the murmered cheering and thucking boot of the ball soaring through our little living room against the clink of my teaspoon stirring coffee. I think: mechanical invisibility. When we were younger we'd go out dancing, which is to say we'd get all heeled up and end up on our knees in the kitchen at 10 o clock, crooning alice cooper and clinging to each other, drunk on cheap red wine that tasted coarse and of cork, vinegary spices and hot breath, smeared lipstick and stale churches. We'd change tack just like that so I do it with a shrug. I tap the spoon on the rim, hum some bars and then break out a high pitch in a faint whisper; ain't that juuurrst like a woman. He places a palm on my thigh, a firm request with a murmured smile, vacant and sticky and pretty. You want some ice cream i ask. And he says yes please.